Birds & Bees a Nonviolent Exchange

[Semantics]

[Kätzchen]

[Turtle]

[Kätzchen]

[always2late]

Peacock spider

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Calls

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/N...ingbird/sounds

If you’ve been hearing an endless string of 10 or 15 different birds singing outside your house, you might have a Northern Mockingbird in your yard. These slender-bodied gray birds apparently pour all their color into their personalities. They sing almost endlessly, even sometimes at night, and they flagrantly harass birds that intrude on their territories, flying slowly around them or prancing toward them, legs extended, flaunting their bright white wing patches.

Size & Shape
A medium-sized songbird, a bit more slender than a thrush and with a longer tail. Mockingbirds have small heads, a long, thin bill with a hint of a downward curve, and long legs. Their wings are short, rounded, and broad, making the tail seem particularly long in flight.
Color Pattern
Mockingbirds are overall gray-brown, paler on the breast and belly, with two white wingbars on each wing. A white patch in each wing is often visible on perched birds, and in flight these become large white flashes. The white outer tail feathers are also flashy in flight.
Behavior
The Northern Mockingbird enjoys making its presence known. It usually sits conspicuously on high vegetation, fences, eaves, or telephone wires, or runs and hops along the ground. Found alone or in pairs throughout the year, mockingbirds aggressively chase off intruders on their territory.
Habitat
Look for Northern Mockingbirds in towns, suburbs, backyards, parks, forest edges, and open land at low elevations.

Cool Facts

It’s not just other mockingbirds that appreciate a good song. In the nineteenth century, people kept so many mockingbirds as cage birds that the birds nearly vanished from parts of the East Coast. People took nestlings out of nests or trapped adults and sold them in cities such as Philadelphia, St. Louis, and New York, where, in 1828, extraordinary singers could fetch as much as $50.
Northern Mockingbirds continue to add new sounds to their repertoires throughout their lives. A male may learn around 200 songs throughout its life.
The Northern Mockingbird frequently gives a "wing flash" display, where it half or fully opens its wings in jerky intermediate steps, showing off the big white patches. No one knows why it does this, but it may startle insects, making them easier to catch. On the other hand, it doesn’t often seem to be successful, and different mockingbird species do this same display even though they don’t have white wing patches.
Northern Mockingbirds sing all through the day, and often into the night. Most nocturnal singers are unmated males, which sing more than mated males during the day, too. Nighttime singing is more common during the full moon.
Northern Mockingbirds typically sing from February through August, and again from September to early November. A male may have two distinct repertoires of songs: one for spring and another for fall.
The female Northern Mockingbird sings too, although usually more quietly than the male does. She rarely sings in the summer, and usually only when the male is away from the territory. She sings more in the fall, perhaps to establish a winter territory.
The oldest Northern Mockingbird on record was 14 years and 10 months old.

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGND73NdaLs"]Listen To The Mockingbird by Brother Bones and His Shadows - YouTube[/nomedia]

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gvr3lbxi1a0"]LISTEN TO THE MOCKINGBIRD - VOCAL- Ladies & Love Songs of the Civil War-Tom Roush - YouTube[/nomedia]

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Cool Facts

The Bullock's Oriole hybridizes extensively with the Baltimore Oriole where their ranges overlap in the Great Plains. The two species were considered the same for a while and called the Northern Oriole, but recently, they were separated again. Molecular studies of the oriole genus indicate that the two species are not very closely related.
The Bullock's Oriole's nest is not always placed in territory where the male advertises.
Both sexes of Bullock's Oriole sing, but the males and females sing different songs. The song of the female is similar to that of the male, but it ends differently and with harsher notes. Early in nesting period, and before and during nest-building, the female sings regularly, and may sing more than the male.

Other Names

Northern Oriole (in part)
Oriole de Bullock, Oriole à ailes blanches (French)
Bolsero calandria (Spanish)

Cool Facts

The Bullock's Oriole hybridizes extensively with the Baltimore Oriole where their ranges overlap in the Great Plains. The two species were considered the same for a while and called the Northern Oriole, but recently, they were separated again. Molecular studies of the oriole genus indicate that the two species are not very closely related.
The Bullock's Oriole's nest is not always placed in territory where the male advertises.
Both sexes of Bullock's Oriole sing, but the males and females sing different songs. The song of the female is similar to that of the male, but it ends differently and with harsher notes. Early in nesting period, and before and during nest-building, the female sings regularly, and may sing more than the male.

Habitat
Open Woodland
Riparian and open woodlands, or woodlots with tall trees, including parklands. Winters in riparian woodlands and woodland edge, with some in pine, pine-oak, or fir forests.

Food
Insects
Caterpillars, fruits, insects, spiders, and nectar.


Nest Description

Hanging nest, neatly woven of hair (especially horsehair), twine, fibers, grasses, and wool, lined with cottonwood or willow cotton, wool, or feathers. Placed in isolated trees, at edges of woodlands, along watercourses, in shelterbelts, and in urban parks, often near water.
Nest Placement


Gleans and probes in trees and flowers for insects and nectar. Visits feeders for sugar water.

A beautiful bird

[willow]

[Nomad]

[Nomad]

[Girl_On_Fire]

[Angeltoes]

Mountain Bluebird...

[weatherboi]

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The Guianan Cock-of-the-Rock is a brightly-colored bird with a unique half-moon crest which is used as competitive display to attract female. One thing extraordinary about this bird is its coloration; the bill, legs, feathers are all orange. Not only that, even the bird’s skin is also orange.

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[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtkhJ1xqw2o"]Al Jolson - When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin' Along (1926) - YouTube[/nomedia]




Cool Facts

An American Robin can produce three successful broods in one year. On average, though, only 40 percent of nests successfully produce young. Only 25 percent of those fledged young survive to November. From that point on, about half of the robins alive in any year will make it to the next. Despite the fact that a lucky robin can live to be 14 years old, the entire population turns over on average every six years.
Although robins are considered harbingers of spring, many American Robins spend the whole winter in their breeding range. But because they spend more time roosting in trees and less time in your yard, you're much less likely to see them. The number of robins present in the northern parts of the range varies each year with the local conditions.
Robins eat a lot of fruit in fall and winter. When they eat honeysuckle berries exclusively, they sometimes become intoxicated.
Robin roosts can be huge, sometimes including a quarter-million birds during winter. In summer, females sleep at their nests and males gather at roosts. As young robins become independent, they join the males. Female adults go to the roosts only after they have finished nesting.
Robins eat different types of food depending on the time of day: more earthworms in the morning and more fruit later in the day. Because the robin forages largely on lawns, it is vulnerable to pesticide poisoning and can be an important indicator of chemical pollution.
The oldest recorded American Robin was 13 years and 11 months old.

[LeftWriteFemme]

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One of the most abundant birds across North America, and one of the most boldly colored, the Red-winged Blackbird is a familiar sight atop cattails, along soggy roadsides, and on telephone wires. Glossy-black males have scarlet-and-yellow shoulder patches they can puff up or hide depending on how confident they feel. Females are a subdued, streaky brown, almost like a large, dark sparrow. In the North, their early arrival and tumbling song are happy indications of the return of spring.

Cool Facts

Different populations and subspecies of Red-winged Blackbirds vary markedly in size and proportions. An experiment was conducted that moved nestlings between populations and found that the chicks grew up to resemble their foster parents. This study indicated that much of the difference seen between populations is the result of different environments rather than different genetic makeups.
The Red-winged Blackbird is a highly polygynous species, meaning males have many female mates – up to 15 in some cases. In some populations 90 percent of territorial males have more than one female nesting on their territories. But all is not as it seems: one-quarter to one-half of nestlings turn out to have been sired by someone other than the territorial male.
Male Red-winged Blackbirds fiercely defend their territories during the breeding season, spending more than a quarter of daylight hours in territory defense. He chases other males out of the territory and attacks nest predators, sometimes going after much larger animals, including horses and people.
Red-winged Blackbirds roost in flocks in all months of the year. In summer small numbers roost in the wetlands where the birds breed. Winter flocks can be congregations of several million birds, including other blackbird species and starlings. Each morning the roosts spread out, traveling as far as 50 miles to feed, then re-forming at night.
One California subspecies of the Red-winged Blackbird lacks the yellow borders to the red shoulders (epaulets) and has been dubbed the “bicolored blackbird.” Some scientists think this plumage difference may help Red-winged Blackbirds recognize each other where their range overlaps with the similar Tricolored Blackbird.
The oldest recorded Red-winged Blackbird was 15 years 9 months old.

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cp6bd2vf314"]The Beatles - Blackbird (Lyrics) - YouTube[/nomedia]
Lyrics-
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

Black bird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
all your life
you were only waiting for this moment to be free

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird fly, Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.

Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise,
You were only waiting for this moment to arise

[PaPa]

[Martina]